Focus turns to Cuba’s heir apparent

Havana, November 30

With revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dead and his brother Raul vowing to step down as President in 15 months, it will soon be the hour of heir apparent Miguel Diaz-Canel, an advocate for modernising Cuba’s state-run media and abysmal Internet access.

Fidel Castro died last Friday and the 85-year-old Raul Castro, who took over as president in 2008, says he will step down in February 2018 at the end of his second five-year term. Diaz-Canel was elevated to the position of first vice-president in 2013, putting him next in line for the presidency.

At 56, he is a relative youngster in the ruling Communist Party’s leadership and will need to appeal to younger generations if Cuban communism is to thrive beyond the Castro brothers. He has already established press and Internet freedom as signature concerns, a potentially disruptive change in a one-party state that has monopolised the media for nearly 58 years.

Otherwise, however, he has a much weaker public profile than the Castros and it is not clear what policy changes he would push through.

Until now, he has held to the party line or avoided public comment on key issues such as economic and political reforms or relations with the United States, which were overhauled by Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama over the past two years.

Still, experts say his position as heir apparent is solid and that he would have to stumble badly for someone else to leapfrog him and become the next President in Cuba’s arcane system for choosing its leader.

US officials say they know little about him, and most Cubans outside his hometown of Santa Clara know even less.

If he does take over in 2018, Diaz-Canel will be following 59 years of rule by the Castro brothers, one who was gifted with abundant charisma and the other who commanded the absolute respect of top military and political figures.

“He will be the first civilian president of the revolution and that will require the confidence of the military,” said Arturo Lopez Levy, a former political analyst for the Cuban government. — Reuters